[Malvern] More Networking Questions

[Richard Forster]

Short answer: Don't know and I doubt there would be much in it (apart 
from cost, space and driver issues).

But, I expect some low latency, high performance routing/firewalling 
tricks could be played if you could get a multi-port version of this:
http://www.killernic.com/
A network card which runs linux and takes over the OS's network stack.
Essentially I'm thinking that if the traffic is coming in and going out 
on different ports on the same card then you could get benefits if you 
can process the traffic on the card itself. But if you have to process 
the traffic (make routing decisions) in the CPU then it doesn't matter 
whether you have 2 cards or 2 ports on one card.

But you can't get a multi-port version so this is academic (and chuffin' 
expensive at £180 on play.com).

What have you found then Ian? Which arguments seem plausible and which 
are totally hatstand?

Rick

PS It's harder to make plumbing mistakes if you have very different 
network cards. Eg I have a D-Link PCI card and a SIS motherboard 
interface. When I'm setting up networking I don't have to think "Which 
cable goes in which port?" because it's much more obvious which is 
which. But then, that's something you only have to get right once and 
then you leave it alone.



Ian Pascoe wrote:
> Hi Folks
> 
> Simple one this!
> 
> I've found plenty of resource on the net regarding this question, but most
> of it appears to be personal opinion, and I wondered if anyone out there had
> a definitive answer.
> 
> Apart from cost, and storage space in a PC, which is better, to have a twin
> port PCI ethernet card., or two single cards?
> 
> E
> 
> 
> 
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